Unrest in Iraq is providing Islamist militants with training and contacts that could be used in new attacks abroad, the head of the CIA has warned.

In his first public appearance as CIA director, Porter Goss said the conflict had become a "cause for extremists".

It was only a matter of time, he added, before militant groups like the al-Qaeda network attempted to use weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Goss was testifying before a Senate hearing on threats to the US.

More than three years after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the CIA director stressed that militants were still trying to strike inside the US.

The Bush administration cited links between Saddam Hussein and the 11 September hijackers as a main reason for invading Iraq.

The US later said it had found no evidence of contacts between Iraq and the hijackers.

Mr Goss said the ongoing Iraq conflict, "while not a cause of extremisms, has become a cause for extremists".

One US terrorism expert said Mr Goss's remarks indicated he was not taking marching orders from the White House.

"Goss is very much listening to what his analysts are saying, and not necessarily to what the White House wants to hear," Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service told the Reuters news agency.

He added that despite successful elections in Iraq on 30 January, a spate of bomb attacks in recent weeks and the unwillingness of Sunni Arabs to vote showed that the insurgency remained a threat to stable representative government.